In 2016, Obama announced to the world: "ISIS has been defeated by the international coalition." In 2019, Trump announced that "terrorist leader al-Baghdadi was shot dead by U.S. special forces", and the ISIS organization that caused disaster in the Middle East came to an end.
However, with the escalation of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the world has turned its attention to Europe, and the Middle East issue has gradually faded into obscurity. Today, the spark of terrorism in Iraq has not been extinguished, and even ISIS is still active in Iraq as a guerrilla force.
However, there is a special forces unit in Iraq - ISOF, which is still firmly fighting ***.
ISOF: The Mainstay of Iraq's Stability Maintenance Iraq's new ** stability maintenance work currently relies mainly on ISOF troops. The members of the ISOF unit are all trained by American special forces, equipped with American-style equipment, and control armored vehicles and carry out anti-bandit missions throughout Iraq.
Since 2020, ISOF troops have frequently been on the Internet**, commenting: Although the ** teams in the Middle East have generally received training from the United States, the only "division" ** that can really complete the task independently is probably only ISOF.
So, how did ISOF come to be? What glorious achievements did this unit achieve on the battlefield in Iraq? Let's uncover the story behind ISOF.
After overthrowing Saddam's regime, the United States did not directly rule Iraq, but rebuilt Iraq**, replaced Saddam's Baath Socialist Party, and at the same time organized Shiite and Kurdish civil forces to enter the top level of Iraq.
As for the local grassroots**, there has basically been no change. The United States has been tolerant of the new high-level who have compromised with the United States, but it has hardened its attitude toward Saddam's cronies and the military, especially the loyal Republican Guard.
During the Saddam era, there were hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq, and because the military pay stopped after losing sovereignty, the Iraqi military repeatedly asked the new army for repayment, and even some generals directly approached the US occupation forces to ask for money, but the United States resolutely refused.
The army is the foundation of Saddam Hussein, and as long as they are around, the Saddam family may make a comeback.
According to the analysis of later generations, it was this order for the disbandment of the army that caused the US troops in Iraq to fall into the sea of people's war. Although many professional soldiers returned home, a part joined the guerrillas to fight the American army for a decade.
After the outbreak of the war in Syria in 2011, a group of Iraqi veterans were also involved, many of whom have been active in the military since the days of the Gulf War and have strong combat effectiveness.
However, the newly recruited army of the Republic of Iraq has not yet experienced the baptism of the Gulf War or the Iraq War, and their members lack combat experience and have not been able to form effective combat effectiveness for a long time.
The United States tried to help them by providing ** and conducting training, but the effect was not obvious. Some units have been training for half a year, and it has become a problem to even get out of bed. Therefore, in 2004, the United States began to intensively train a group of elite units to fight alongside them, which is the Iraqi Special Forces (ISOF).
The United States has adopted a special strategy of sending their own special forces, the "Green Berets", to Iraq to aid in the form of training Iraqis.
This is because the United States believes that this approach will allow Iraqis to adapt more quickly to the environment of modern warfare and will be able to effectively improve their combat effectiveness. Although this approach has met with some opposition in Iraq, the United States believes it is an approach worth trying.
At the same time, the United States will take special care to select and train these Iraqis to ensure their loyalty and combat effectiveness.
ISOF uses the same training specifications as the U.S. Army's "Green Berets", with two U.S. Army instructors leading 12 well-educated young servicemen to train.
ISOF is mainly composed of the 36th Assault Battalion, with a total of more than 1,000 personnel in three battalions, and its establishment is inherited from the elite units of the former Iraqi Defense Forces. In addition, the ISOF has an airborne rapid reaction force called CTF, with more than 400 members.
Although ISOF is equipped with the United States**, it is not loyal to the United States, but to maintain the security and tranquility of the country and its people in the chaotic social order after the end of the Iraq war.
This is also the goal of the formation of the ISOF, and the US military has also provided relevant regulations as a reference for this.
On the battlefields of Iraq, there is a saying that makes sense: "The best way to learn to swim is to jump right into the water." In 2004, when the first ISOF forces began to participate in operations with the U.S. military, northern Iraq was essentially a guerrilla zone where al-Qaeda branches were active.
So, the U.S. military brought ISOF to the battlefield to help them in the war of law and order. In the beginning, ISOF was mainly responsible for standing guard for the US military. However, after 2005, Mosul in northern Iraq and Fallujah in central Iraq were areas where guerrillas were active, and U.S. forces fought many street battles here to capture cities.
In street battles, ISOF also entered the city in armored vehicles for fire suppression, and unfortunately, some ** also appeared.
At that time, the Iraqi people had a strong antipathy towards the United States, and ISOF, as a native Iraqi soldier, suffered the anger of the local people in order to assist the US military in fighting the guerrillas.
However, despite the intense pressure, the ISOF persisted in carrying out the military order. This is mainly because most of them are from the Kurdish ethnic group and do not have much psychological burden to fight outside their homeland.
In addition, the United States offered ISOF high salaries, at a time when the regular Iraqi army paid less than $80 a month, and officers only paid $150, compared to the $500 a month offered by the United States for ISOF, and the officers were paid even more.
Such a reward is a huge ** for the fighters of the ISOF, so they work harder and grow rapidly.
In 2007, a group called the "Iraqi Justice Coalition" emerged in Iraq, and they committed an incident that shocked the world: they kidnapped several American GIs from the US ** camp and then shot them in public.
This well-trained organization entered the U.S. military camp in Kabbalah, burned and looted, and then succeeded in taking the prisoners. This horrific incident had a great impact on Iraq, so the US military used ISOF to fight back.
Subsequently, the ISOF was sent to the Kabala region to conduct anti-terrorist operations, in which the ground tasks were mainly carried out by the ISOF, while the US Air Force provided intelligence and air strikes.
During the battle, Iraqi special forces soldiers carried out a small-scale night raid with the vehicle-mounted ** of the armored vehicle as the core, and successfully eliminated a number of *** and captured a number of **.
Despite the fact that the "coalition forces of justice" were prepared for the attack of the US military, they still suffered a heavy ** under the blow of the ISOF.
The ISOF has made amazing progress in the past time, which has led the US military to gradually transfer special forces back home, leaving only a few instructors and senior commanders to guide and command locally.
In 2011, U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq, and security in Iraq was handed back to the local army and police. However, at the same time as the withdrawal of US troops, the outbreak of civil war in Syria put enormous pressure on Iraq's military.
Until 2014, Iraq remained largely stable, but then with the rise of ISIS, the northern border of Iraq was quickly breached by militants, and the land fell very quickly.
Although the Iraqi army has the best equipment of the United States, it has not won a single battle, and even lost a large number of Humvees and armored vehicles to the army
In this case, ISOF stepped forward and led the Iraqi army to carry out **, becoming the protagonist on the stage of history.
In 2015, ISIS was at its peak, and countries around the world had to send coalition forces to strike ISIS in Syria and Iraq. By this time, Iraq's ISOF special forces had become the main force in the army, and its strength had been expanded, and it now had five battalions and more than 2,000 people, mostly ground troops.
Although Iraq** has 300,000 regular troops, it may have fewer than 20,000 troops capable of fighting; Of these 20,000 people, ISOF is the striker. In the same year, the U.S. military re-entered Iraq as an international anti-terrorist coalition to work with ISOF to storm the occupied central city of Mosul, the third time the Americans have engaged in street fighting here.
The US military has a lot of experience, they command ISOF in street battles in the back, and it is said that Iraqi soldiers are heroic in battle, ** large. At that time, small UAVs had not yet been popularized, and the Iraqi special forces could only use the traditional tactics of "occupying high points, detecting the enemy's situation, and dividing troops to advance" and fighting for a house and a street.
This tactic is very similar to the Wagner mercenaries in the current Russia-Ukraine war. According to online data, ISOF in Mosul is more than 40%, which can be said to be a big loss.
Despite the fact that the United States has given a lot of help in the training and equipment of the ISOF, the ISOF fighters have always persevered in their efforts and fought for the safety of their country and their families.
Their tenacity is admirable, and their possession of the Swiss M400 assault rifle, the Rock River LAR15 carbine, as well as the EO-Tech series of scopes and green berets and other equipment, also fully demonstrate their improvement in combat effectiveness.
In battle, they also often use the best equipment, because these accessories are reasonable and the use experience is not inferior to the American style. In short, the performance of the ISOF fighters is proud, and their hard work and fighting spirit deserve our learning and respect.
In 2016, coalition forces launched a devastating attack on ISIS, with the Russian army and the regular US military as the main forces. In just half a year, the main cities of ISIS were successfully liberated, and more than a million people were able to escape from the oppression.
After that, the US and Russian forces negotiated to withdraw from the Middle East at the same time, leaving only a small number of air forces and special forces. At that time, ISIS was widely believed to be extinct, but there were still a large number of ISIS underground strongholds in rural Iraq.
From 2016 to 2022, ISOF has made more than 600 sorties, eliminating thousands of *** throughout Iraq and completely extinguishing the fire of ISIS.
Since then, the unit has established its own command and training system, no longer relying on the guidance of the US military, and guarding the country on its own. Iraq** has decided to further expand the size of ISOF, with plans to expand it to 5,000-8,000 in the future.
The United States agrees with this, because all the ** they purchase comes from the United States, and the US ** fire dealers can profit from it. In recent decades, many people have expressed doubts about whether the Arabs can fight because of the Middle East War and the Gulf War.
However, after understanding the combat history of ISOF, we can be sure that as long as it is well-trained, well-trained, and high-quality soldiers, the Middle East can also build world-class elite troops.